


we wonder to know you

by jugandbettsdetectiveagency



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, Future Fic, Jughead Jones and his childhood issues, Riverdale Writing Challenge, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 18:37:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17289275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugandbettsdetectiveagency/pseuds/jugandbettsdetectiveagency
Summary: Jughead wants to be needed, so much he almost craves it. The lifelong desire has had moments of being so strong that it’s led him to doing some stupid things. Undeniably, it’s also led to the best.





	we wonder to know you

**Author's Note:**

> this was written as part of the riverdale writing challenge
> 
> title from ‘the funeral’ by band of horses

Christmas music is playing its gentle, upbeat tune in the background, never quite fully drowned out by the mindless hum of festive shoppers, and Jughead is torn.

His head is beginning that painful throb that comes with a tidy combination of a lack of sleep, too many mismatched perfume scents assaulting his nose, and an unsolvable dilemma.

He turns his back to the shelf and walks away.

 

 

 

  
Thirty minutes later, and a burrito heavier, Jughead finds himself in front of the same shelf, sporting a selection of potential gifts labelled _‘For Dad, this Christmas!’_

Absolutely none of them, Jughead thinks with just an edge of bitterness creeping into his thoughts, will be for his dad this Christmas.

 

 

 

  
If Betty were with him, she’d know what to do.

 

 

 

  
To amuse himself for a while, Jughead heads over to the toy section of the store, trying to guess which of this year’s must have toys he would have put on his list when he was younger… if he’d had a list… or a hope of getting what was written on said list…

He leaves the toy section.

 

 

 

  
A little onesie with red and green reindeer printed on it is clutched between his hands when the sales assistant approaches him.

“Can I help you with anything?” he asks in his politest customer service voice, with a neutral, bland smile to accompany it.

Jughead’s eyes meet his for a second, imagining what his expression must look like right now. The bags beneath his eyes are at least two shades darker after these past weeks, and the defeat weighing heavily in the pit of his stomach must be showing on his face. He turns his gaze to the outfit still between his fingers—it seems so impossibly soft and small, and anything that fits inside such a thing can’t be anything other than just the same.

When he looks back the sales assistant’s name badge catches his eye. _Jack_.

Jughead swallows around the thick, sour lump clogging his throat just enough to say, “No, thanks,” and walk away.

 

 

 

  
“How is he?” Jughead asks the moment he steps through the door, kicking off the fresh snow from his boots.

Betty’s voice is soft and low when she replies, rising from the sofa almost subconsciously to come and meet him. “I got him down about ten minutes ago. It’s a shame, you just missed a spectacular diaper explosion.” She lifts an eyebrow, amusement dancing in her tired eyes.

Jughead glances down, suddenly registering that she’s wearing a different shirt to when he left. He presses his lips together, a poor attempt to stop his smile.

“It’s my impeccable timing, babe. One of the many reasons you love me,” he teases, cupping her elbow and giving it a gentle squeeze as he moves past her into the house.

Betty lets out a disapproving noise. “Yeah, I just think you and your son are in cahoots against me and my clean laundry.”

_You and your son._

It’s going to take a little while longer to get used to that phrase. At least from the perspective of the father. You and your son used to come from the sneering mouths of northside authority figures, or rival gang members, without the barest hint of affection present. It was an accusation, something undesirable—to ignite shame. Jughead remembers feeling the flame of it in his cheeks vividly as a kid, especially as a teenager. Even now, as the words bounce around the empty spaces left in his head they poke at him with sharp corners, uncomfortable and unsure.

 

 

 

  
When Cooper was born Jughead had barely wanted to touch him. He came barrelling into the world, red and screaming at ten-thirty two on an October morning as the first of the leaves were beginning to fall, shifting everything all at once.

The inexplicable sense of change in the air sat heavily on Jughead’s chest, just as the weight of their new son settled against Betty’s. Her eyes were wet and he couldn’t tell if his were too, his joints frozen and body numb from where he stood hovering by the bed.

Through the white noise ringing in his ears filtered Betty’s coos, and the syllables of his name sounding disjointed and unfamiliar.

“Juggie?”

The look waiting for him in her eyes steals his breath for a moment. Beneath the sweat and the strain and the unbridled joy he can see something else nestled below—concern. Concern for him and his non-reaction to the birth of their first child.

Something hits him in the gut with that look, something solid and visceral. It stems from the quiet need in Betty’s expression—the need for him to be there for her.

Jughead wants to be needed, so much he almost _craves_ it. The lifelong desire has had moments of being so strong that it’s led him to doing some stupid things: investigating a murder that resulted in his father’s incarceration; joining a gang; trying to unite the ostensibly divided factions of a crumbling town.

Undeniably, it’s also led to the best things: climbing through his best friend’s window when she felt the world was against her, laying a kiss upon her parted lips and forging a path he didn’t know his life could ever take.

But as he stared down at his wife, the thing they created together out of nothing and everything falling asleep in the cradle of her arms, Jughead realised that the feeling he was feeling was the overwhelming, grounding sense of being needed. This bundle that was so fragile and defenceless was reliant on him to keep him safe from all the nightmares that plagued Jughead’s own childhood.

He was aware then, that the tears he hadn’t been sure existed had left drying trails down his cheeks, now serving as guiding paths for the fresh set just beginning to fall. He leaned in close to first press a kiss to Betty’s damp forehead and then to the smooth, fresh expanse of Cooper’s.

 

 

 

  
Even as Jughead poured every last morsel of energy into his newfound parenting skills, it didn’t dilute the terror. That feeling he’d felt in the moments just after Cooper’s birth—what if it faded?

Something with that much intensity didn’t feel like it ever could, but then as they’d called Betty’s parents to come to the hospital to visit their grandchild Jughead had been given pause. He wasn’t hungrily reaching for his phone, desperate to dial for his own parents to come and meet his son. With a twist to his gut, he thought for just a moment that he wanted to protect Cooper from them.

Had his dad felt this feeling that he’s feeling? That nothing would be as important as keeping his child from harm? When had it dwindled, been overshadowed by the need to defend a gang, defend a legacy, defend a bottle?

When would he do the same?

 

 

 

 

“Did you have any luck?” Betty asks, sinking back into the corner of the couch, tucking her perpetually cold feet under Jughead’s thighs when he sits next to her. He takes them between his hands instead, kneading some warmth back into them as he talks.

“Not really,” he exhales, twisting his lips in some semblance of a grimace. “But, hey, I did find an outfit for Cooper to wear on Christmas Day,” he deflects, lifting the reindeer onesie out of the bag by his feet.

Betty coos over it for a second, allowing him his moment of distraction before she follows up with a, “Want to talk about it?”

Jughead sighs, tugging on his hair as he fights the urge to swallow his words—not with Betty, never with Betty.

“No, no luck.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I still wasn’t even sure I was gonna get him anything when I got there, and I stood in front of those stupidly gendered gift displays, full of shaving kits and alcohol and I just…” He closes his eyes when he feels the warmth of Betty’s hand on his thigh. “I couldn’t do _anything_.”

“It’s okay, Jug.”

“But is it though? I look at one goddamn bottle and the thought of it in my dad’s hand makes me feel like I’m five years old again. What kind of dad does that make me if I can’t switch this shit off twenty years later? Or even just compartmentalise when I need to?” He bites roughly into his lower lip to staunch the flow of words.

“Hey!” Betty soothes, shifting up onto her knees to scoot closer and reach for his cheek, turning his face towards her. “Stop that. You’re such a good father already, and the fact that you’re even thinking such thoughts shows how good of a person you are.”

“But I know he worried too—”

“Listen,” she cuts in with a brush of her thumb across his cheekbone. “I think we both know that the best of intentions don’t always lead where we expect. But I know you, and I know us, and I know what sets us apart from other people. There’s going to be hardships, and you can’t expect to turn off an adolescence of trauma in three months, that’s way too much pressure to put on yourself. Please, just every time you think these things, remind yourself how much you’ve already overcome, okay? How much we have.”

That same look, like she needs him, needs him to understand her this time, stares back at him. He nods, tucking her beneath his arm and leaning down to press a lingering kiss against her lips, one as soft as the feeling she always manages to leave in his gut.

“I see those therapy sessions are helping, Dr. Cooper,” he teases, poking her side. It’s presented as a joke but he knows she hears the underlying pride in his comment—they’ve both got a lot to overcome.

“Hush you,” she says. _Thank you_ , she means.

Jughead wonders if FP ever understood his mom the way he gets Betty. As she fits herself against the length of his side, slipping her hand under his shirt to press gentle pressure just where he needs it on the muscles of his back, he doesn’t think it likely.

 

 

 

 

Christmas Day itself is a quiet affair, Betty having told her family they wanted to spend a quiet first Christmas with Cooper at home. Jellybean facetimes somewhere around lunch, just as Cooper’s head is beginning to loll for his midday nap, and Jughead’s heart clenches at the way he keeps startling himself awake at the sound of his aunt’s voice, drool soaking the reindeer on his onesie.

 

 

 

 

Jughead has never really considered New Years a holiday. There was nothing different about his father welcoming midnight with a swig of Jack and a slurred word.

 _But so much has changed_ , Jughead reminds himself several times throughout New Year’s Eve, when he finds himself fighting the tight pressure in his lungs, the quickening of his pulse. _So much is different_.

Cooper sits on his abdomen as they lie on the floor, giving him gummy smiles as Jughead makes all manner of ridiculous faces.

He’s watching him nap in the bouncer Veronica had gifted them when the leather bound notebook Betty got him for Christmas catches his eye from the side table. A thrill he knows well goes through him as he opens up the first blank page and sets pen to paper.

_Cooper laughed today. I shook the stuffed, purple elephant that Archie bought right in front of him and he just laughed. I’ve read so many descriptions of that sound—melodic, resonant, silvery, sweet. This was none of those things. It was loud and hideous, more of a gurgle than anything, but I’ve never heard something as pure. It was so unencumbered, weightless even. I could listen to it forever._

“What’re you doing?” Betty asks from behind, looping her arms around his neck, pecking his cheek.

“I thought I’d use your gift as a sort of journal, like you used to when we were kids. I thought it might, I don’t know— It’ll be something to look back on when I’m having a hard time with… everything. It know it sounds…” he trails off, not sure how it sounds to her, heat creeping up his neck.

Betty’s voice is barely a whisper when she answers. “I think it sounds like a great idea, Jug.”

She crawls over the back of the couch, settling her knees either side of his lap. The journal slips to the side, to be picked up again later, while Jughead busies his hands with other things.

 

 

 

  
He rings in the new year putting baby bottles into the steriliser for the morning. Betty wanders in from the hall, handing him the one Cooper’s just finished to add to the rest. The ball drop is muted in the living room, the light of the tv illuminating the otherwise dimly lit room.

“Veronica sent me a video of their view from the city. You could hear noise from the square all the way at her balcony.” Jughead grins at the note of horror he can hear in her voice.

“That’s nothing compared to the screaming we’ll be hearing in, oh say, three hours?”

Betty laughs, circling her arms around his waist as he tugs lightly at her ponytail. “If you’re lucky.” He kisses her in the glow of celebrations. “I know that New Years has never been fun for you. I just want to make sure you know how proud of you I am.”

He kisses her again, unhurried as he runs his hands down her back, his tongue across her lips. “I know,” Jughead confirms.

He’s proud of him, too.

The journal is sitting, safely, in the top draw of his side of the bed, several pages full now, the cover beginning to get worn in with repeated use. It has plenty more to come, he knows. And that’s alright.

One day he’ll show it to Cooper.

 


End file.
